True love is shown in action. Not in words, but in humble service to those around us each day.
Love Is Demonstrated Through Actions
βLet us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.β (1 Jn 3:18)
The message is all too clear. It calls us to be authentic Christians as Jesus insisted we should be. And yet isnβt this what the world is waiting for? Isnβt it true that the world today wants to see people who truly give witness to the love of Jesus? Therefore, let us love with deeds, rather than with words, starting with the humble service asked of us every day by those right next to us.
Gregorian chant is often called the first written music of the West. It began as a simple line of prayer in melodyβone that would shape centuries of worship and inspire music far beyond the church walls.
Remembering Pope Saint Gregory the Great
When we look back at the history of music, one name rises from the early centuriesβGregorian chant. Many call it the first written music in the Western world. The starting point. The ground where everything else would later grow.
But why is it called Gregorian? The answer takes us to Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590β604 AD), a leader remembered not only for guiding the Church but also for shaping how worship would sound for centuries.
One Voice
In Gregoryβs time, the Church sang in many different ways. Each region had its own melodies, its own flow. Beautiful, but scattered. Gregory dreamed of unity. He began to collect and arrange the chants, giving them order, and teaching the Church to sing with one voice. He even founded a school of singers in Romeβthe schola cantorumβto carry this vision forward.
The Dove
A legend tells us that Gregory wrote while a dove whispered in his earβthe Holy Spirit guiding him note by note. Maybe he didnβt actually compose the melodies himself, but the story captures something true: people felt this music was not just human, but divine.
More Than Sound
Gregorian chant was prayer in melody. One pure line of sound, sung together in unison. No instruments, no extra layersβjust voices moving as one, carrying words of Scripture. In monasteries and cathedrals, this music shaped the rhythm of worship and the soul of a people.
Why It Matters
To remember Pope Gregory is to remember a beginning. Gregorian chant is not just old musicβit is the seed from which Western music grew. Every symphony, every song, in some way traces back to these simple lines sung in stone halls long ago.
At the heart of it was a man who wanted unity, who listened for the Spirit, and who left us the gift of a music that still whispers of heaven. And every September 3, the Church remembers himβnot only as a pope and a saint, but as the one whose name became forever linked with the first music of the West.
That spirit of pure melody still speaks today. One of my own pieces, Yearning Thoughts from Voices Across the Field, carries a trace of that same yearning. Itβs not Gregorian chant, but it feels like a modern echo of it.
